Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, 1830–1870 (Garland Reference Library of the)

by Margaret S. Creighton (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 6 ratings
ISBN-13: 978-0521484480
ISBN-10: 0521484480
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her informative, engaging book, Creighton, a history professor and author of Dogwatch and Liberty Days: Seafaring Life in the 19th Century, offers valuable insight into the existence of real-life Ishmaels and Ahabs at the height of the American whaling industry. Her underlying investigation fits into current scholarly interests in "otherness" as she weighs two camps?one insisting sailors were misfits, alien to landbound norms; the other claiming that they were simply "working men who got wet." But Creighton's study isn't sunk by theoretical jargon; it's an accessible reconstruction of shipboard life and the feelings of sailors towards officers, each other and those left behind. Part of her research is based on newspaper accounts and other terra-firma evidence, but more is from the diaries and logbooks of some 200 sailors. What becomes clear is that embarking on a years-long whaling voyage wasn't farming the sea. Everything was different: law, earnings, food, rituals, power structure, social interaction, even gender roles (one sailor notes: "started the sewing society again... stitch on stitch, patch on patch is all the rage."). It was also deeply boring (one record reads: "something was done this day but i dont know what it was now, anyhow it began at 7 A.M. and finished at 2 P.M. what it was i cant remember.") and hugely dirty (another sailor describes rendering the blubber, saying "Everything [is] beshit."). But for all that, when the sailors detail their fear of the journey's dangers, anger at officers, their anxiety that hometown girls may betray them or may reject them altogether as "filthy whalemen," they show themselves to be profoundly, universally human.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...an intriquing probe of the heyday of the industry..." The Midwest Book Review

"In her informative, engaging book, Creighton...offers valuable insight into the existence of real-life Ishmaels and Ahabs at the height of the American whaling industry....Creighton's study isn't sunk by theoretical jargon; it's an accessible reconstruction of shipboard life and the feelings of sailors towards officers, each other and those left behind." Publishers Weekly

"Margaret Creighton has written a fascinating book on the world of whalemen in whaling's golden era. From her reading in more than two hundred diaries and letters, Creighton shows how factors such as gender, religion, and the profit motive produced the whalemen's rich and lively culture. This is an insightful piece of historical scholarship and a good story as well." E. Anthony Rotundo, author of American Manhood

"...a commendable analysis of the whaleman's experiences....Rites and Passages is important reading for anyone interested in American whaling....an essential reference for further work in this field." Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr., Nautical Research Journal

"...this is a book well worth reading. The depth of research alone is impressive. Frequent quotations from the sailors' diaries and letters allow the reader to form personal opinions of the matters at hand....She has created a convincing "chapter of human history." John F. Battick, International Journal of Maritime History

"...this remains a valuable and important book in a field that remains dominated, at least obliquely, by the genius of Melville." Stephen Innes, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"...artful and engaging....a well-written and beautifully illustrated book..." Simon P. Newman, The PA Magazine of History & Software

"Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, 1830-1870, Creighton takes the historiography of American Whaling well beyond its traditional boundaries to investigate issues as subtle and affective as gender identity, masculinity and femininity, the influence of race and class, and the rites of passage from adolescence into manhood. With this book, the ongoing conversation about the import and effect of American whaling has been advanced and updated significantly. Even the most casual student of whaling should have this intriguing book on his or her self." Glenn S. Gordinier, The Mariner's Museum Journal

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press (August 25, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 252 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0521484480
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0521484480
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.57 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

About the author

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Margaret Creighton

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Margaret Creighton's interest in history was sparked by a distinct event. One day, some time ago, her great aunt Letitia, of Thomaston, Maine, handed her a packet of letters tied up with a black ribbon. The letters had never been opened. They were written by Letitia’s mother to her brother, Will, who had decided to follow a family tradition and go to sea. In 1886 he sailed from Newport News, Virginia, headed for Barcelona.

He never made it. The ship Norris disappeared in the mid Atlantic without a trace. The letters to Will were collected by the American consul in Spain, and then returned to his sister. “I am so very sorry,” wrote the diplomat, in an attached note.

Creighton’s interest in the history of seafaring—and the wider world of America in the decades after Independence--stemmed from that discovery. She wrote about families at sea, men who sailed before the mast, and, in Rites and Passages, about the maritime lives of American whalemen.

Teaching nineteenth century American history at Bates College meant studying the American Civil War, and it was on a Bates trip to Gettysburg that she uncovered evidence of another story, one that had largely been erased for 150 years. It was the story of soldiers and civilians—immigrant, African American and white women—who found themselves caught in the battle’s crossfire, and who also fought to bring the Union to victory. This “other” Gettysburg, meant seeing and understanding the battle in a different light. The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg’s Forgotten History, was nominated for the Lincoln Prize and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best books written about Gettysburg.

Next, Creighton turned her attention to another national crisis: the assassination of a president at the 1901 World’s Fair. The Pan American Exposition was staged to celebrate the United States at the peak of its imperial power and the country’s command of the natural world. It also touted white American sovereignty over peoples of color worldwide. But the fair didn’t go as planned, and The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City takes the reader through the final months of the fair, when things went tragically and spectacularly awry. It was released in the fall of 2016.

Historical figures in Rainbow City include an assassin and his attacker, a menagerist and his elephant, a Little Person and her lover, and a woman who wanted to ride a barrel over Niagara Falls. Another protagonist, in a way, is the host of the exposition, the proud and resilient City of Buffalo.

Margaret Creighton lives in coastal Maine with her husband, children, and two naughty terriers.

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Henry L Bell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great condition and fast shipping
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2014
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A. Buell Ruch
3.0 out of 5 stars A Humorless and Passionless Study of Whaling
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Fraser Albright
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and beautifully written account
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Thomas Harty
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read. Such fine details of life on the ...
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